Weekly Highlights from our Conservative Overlords

Weekly Highlights from our Conservative Overlords

Monday, December 24, 2012

Guns for the New Year - Week 86 - Dec 17-24

Great timing Steve! The Government announces that they won't adopt laws aimed at making gun shows safer. The proposed requirements? Gun show
sponsors would have to notify police and provincial firearms officers
that they are hosting a gun show, and they would have to "ensure the
security and safety of the location and the firearms". Boy, those sound
like tremendous burdens. The reason why these won't be adopted (other
than "because a committee full of gun advocates decided it's
unnecessary"? "The vast majority of gun show hosts and exhibitors
already follow the rules." Shit. That's totally logical! I mean, we
could do away with all sorts of laws now. The "vast majority" of
Canadians don't drink and drive. Let's get rid of those laws too. The
"vast majority" of Canadians don't murder one another. Don't really
need those ones either.

I like this idea that boingboing is following...essentially trying to
understand if gun control laws actually have some effect. This first
story speculates that they might...or might not. It's hard to say as
it's difficult to study the issue without passing actual laws.

These Vancouver Sun
"Top 10 Photos" articles are usually the worst thing ever. This one is kind of interesting. The top 10 Countries in per capita gun
ownership:USA! USA! - #1 at 88.8 guns per 100 CitizensYemen - #2 with 54.8 guns per 100Switzerland - Surprisingly #3 at 45.7Finland - #4 at 45.3Serbia - #5 at 37.8Cyprus - #6 at 36.4Saudi Arabia - #7 at 35.0Iraq - #8 at 34.2Uruguay - #9 at 31.8Sweden - #10 at 31.6Yes.
The USA has more guns per capita that recently war torn Iraq and
Serbia. Within smelling distance of 3 times as many guns. Crazy.

Once again, Matt Taibbi gets the rage going. This time combining two awesome themes: Too Big to Fail and the War on Drugs. This post
highlights the settlement that HSBC made after being caught laundering
Billions of dollars in cartel money. No jail time, just a (relatively
speaking) small fine. He points out the discrepancy between being a
white collar banking executive committing monstrous crimes vs. the
average bloke caught with a joint in his pocket. Pretty fucked up.

I think this guy misses the point a little bit. First, is this a news
piece? Opinion? Anyhow, he points out that all fighter jets are
expensive. And they all cost money to service and operate. Which is
true. But he loses the point of the hullabaloo. All of this was done
without a rigorous evaluation of options. And it was done with figures
that didn't really represent the reality of the situation. Yes, we may
end up with the F-35 in the end. But we need to make an informed
decision and not just buy something because it's awesome. And
"stealth".